DPP-backed Ko Wen-je expected to win Taipei mayoral race

Independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je, a National Taiwan University Hospital doctor supported by Taiwan’s opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is likely to win the Nov. 29 election and become the mayor of the island’s capital city, Apple Daily (Taiwan) reported.

In the latest opinion poll released Monday by the newspaper, Ko was leading his chief opponent Sean Lien Sheng-wen, a candidate supported by the ruling Kuomintang, by more than 10 percentage points. The two candidates had approval ratings of 40.1 percent and 28.6 percent respectively.

Ko was ahead of Lien in all of the Taipei’s electoral districts, the poll showed. About 25.7 percent of the surveyed voters said they are yet to decide who they will vote for.

Taiwan’s election law forbids the release of any opinion poll within ten days prior to the election. Thus, the latest surveys could be the last ones before the voting day.

The Exchange of Future Events, an online prediction market set up in association with the National Chengchi University, has predicted that Ko will win the election with as many as 780,000 ballots, or 53 percent, beating the previous record of 680,000 ballots set by former mayor Chen Shui-bian, who later become Taiwan’s president.

Meanwhile, DPP candidate is likely to win in the mayoral election in central Taiwan’s Taichung city.

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